The Difference That Matters

Welcome

From the ground up

Compost program limits waste by producing soil for campus use.

Patrick Pfeifer, a second-year graduate student
in the Sustainable Communities master’s
program, knew he could play a part in creating a greener campus. The university’s commitment
to sustainability includes achieving carbon-neutrality by 2020 and an investment
in eight LEED (Leadership
in Energy and Environmental Design)-certified buildings, but Pfeifer
realized that composting – an important component of sustainability – was not
part of the overall picture.

To address these concerns, Pfeifer founded the compost
program, which serves as an example of how ingenuity and resourcefulness can make
a difference in the environment and the community.

Pfeifer initially sought help from the Northern Arizona University Green Fund and other local organizations to help create a compost site on south
campus. After selecting the location, Pfeifer recruited a handful of volunteers
to help collect compost, and the program’s membership has grown steadily since
then.

“The point of the compost program is to allow students
to actively participate in the community, rather than passively learning in the
classroom,” Pfeifer says. “We’re carefully documenting different methods for
different compost piles, which teaches students to use controlled research
processes and skills.”

Humble beginnings

In an effort to spread environmental awareness, Pfeifer
and his staff of more than 15 volunteers have recruited students from all over
campus. Some first heard of the compost program through its involvement with the
Students for Sustainable Living and Urban Gardening (SSLUG) Club; others have
earned credit through first-year seminar courses that reward them for their efforts
in creating an environmentally-friendly campus.

Mark Gallo, a junior majoring in environmental
studies who also serves as one of the organization’s compost technicians, says
that in the compost program's earliest days, a handful of volunteers would walk
compost pickups back to the municipal site on foot.

“It started on a really small scale,” Gallo
says. “I got involved in composting early on, where we started off walking
pickups from the DuBois Center and other places on south campus.”

As the compost program grew and gained more
funding, Pfeifer ultimately worked to obtain a truck to help with transportation.
Later, he developed Velo Composting, an organization that uses bike-pulling trailers
to move larger loads at a much faster rate.

The road to a cleaner Flagstaff

On average, members of the compost program collect waste
every weekday for two hours. A typical day starts on south campus, where two
volunteers pick up the truck.

Prior to arriving, workers at the University
Union and Du Bois Center sort out their waste into a handful of 32-gallon waste
bins. After volunteers pick up the waste, which can add up to 2,000 pounds a
day, they return to the compost site where they test its moisture levels and
temperature. Following these tests, they break down the waste and mix in
buckets of manure and wood chips to increase the fertility of the compost.

Pfeifer believes this work enables students to
benefit from real scientific research, especially with the sheer amount of
compost to be studied.

“We’ve got 95,000 pounds of compost on the site
that we’ve collected since May,” Pfeifer says. “Now that school’s back in
session, we’re picking up around 10,000 pounds of compost a week that we divert
from the landfill and turn into soil for use in gardens on campus.”

Northern Arizona University isn’t the only
beneficiary of the compost program's work; the group also collects waste from
Flagstaff Medical Center and Mother Road Brewery, among other off-campus
locations. Gallo says the compost program participates in this extra work to
demonstrate that their labor can leave an impact on the Flagstaff
community.

“Despite the extra stops, it’s worth it,” Gallo
says. “It’s not a hard thing to do, yet it makes such a huge difference. It’s
what we’ll need as an alternative to fertilize because it's simple, easy, and
you can grow great food out of it. The compost can go far in gardens across
campus or community gardens across town. Composting creates a closed loop that puts
waste to good use.”

An enriching experience

Pfeifer believes the future viability of the
compost program lies in its ability to help the community and program members
alike.

“I think the biggest thing that students are
learning from working on this project is that they can make a difference,”
Pfeifer says. “This group of student volunteers has had some great ideas this
semester that we’ve been able to implement to keep the program
student-oriented; they can be active members in their community, make a
difference, and do something they believe in. The foundations are there to make
good things happen.”